Averted Eye-Gaze Disrupts Configural Face Encoding
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2014
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Abstract
Faces are processed in a configural manner (i.e., without decomposition into individual face features), an effect attributed to humans having a high degree of face processing expertise. However, even when perceiver expertise is accounted for, configural processing is subject to a number of influences, including the social relevance of a face. In the current research, we present two experiments that document the influence of eye-gaze direction (direct or averted) on configural encoding of faces. Experiment 1 uses a version of the composite face paradigm to investigate how eye-gaze influences configural encoding. The results indicate that averted gaze disrupts configural encoding compared to direct eye-gaze. Experiment 2 manipulates whether perceivers can engage in configural encoding using face-inversion, and finds the inversion effects are greater for faces with direct than averted-gaze. We interpret these results as evidence that averted eye-gaze signals that a face is subjectively unimportant, thereby disrupting configural encoding.
DOI
10.1016/j.jesp.2014.03.002
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Young, Steven G.; Slepian, Michael L.; Wilson, John Paul; and Hugenberg, Kurt, "Averted Eye-Gaze Disrupts Configural Face Encoding" (2014). Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 108.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/psychology-facpubs/108
